Charlotte Perkins Gilman Quotes

The home is a human institution. All human institutions are open to improvement. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It does not do to trust people too much. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The home is the center and circumference, the start and the finish, of most of our lives. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Through it [literature] we know the past, govern the present, and influence the future. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It is not for nothing that a man's best friends sigh when he marries, especially if he is a man of genius. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It will be a great thing for the human soul when it finally stops worshipping backwards. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

However, one cannot put a quart in a pint cup. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Said I, in scorn all burning hot,In rage and anger high,You ignominious idiot,Those wings are made to fly! — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Death? Why this fuss about death? Use your imagination, try to visualize a world without death! Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

(At the end of the nineteenth century, economist Charlotte Perkins Gilman complained that housework was the only job that had not been modernized.) — Ann Jones

Legitimate sex-competition brings out all that is best in man. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

the human mind was no better than in its earliest period of savagery, only better informed — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

There are the two of you - the two sexes- to love and help one another. It must be a rich and wonderful world — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The most familiar facts are often hardest to understand. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Maternal instinct, merely as an instinct, is unworthy of our superstitious reverence. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

But only this-that people who are utterly ignorant will believe anything-which you certainly knew before. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The people people have for friends
Your common sense appall
But the people people marry
Are the queerest folk of all. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Now why should that man have fainted? But he did,and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time! — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The mother- poor invaded soul- finds even the bathroom door no bar to hammering little hands. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

But I MUST say what I feel and think in some way - it is such a relief! But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A concept is stronger than a fact. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

When the mother of the race is free, we shall have a better world, by the easy right of birth and by the calm, slow, friendly forces of evolution. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

But we were made to believe and not allowed to think. We were told to obey, rather than to experiment and investigate. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

To be surrounded by beautiful things has much influence upon the human creature; to make beautiful things has more. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

What we do modifies us more than what is done to us. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A family unity which is only bound together with a table-cloth is of questionable value. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The best proof of man's dissatisfaction with the home is found in his universal absence from it. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I do not want to be a fly,I want to be a worm! — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

To attain happiness in another world we need only to believe something, while to secure it in this world we must do something. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

For men obsessed with women's underwear, a course in washing, ironing and mending is recommended. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able, - to dress and entertain, and order things — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

While we flatter ourselves that things remain the same, they are changing under our very eyes from year to year, from day to day. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It would have saved trouble had I remained Perkins from the first, this changing of women's names is a nuisance we are now happily outgrowing. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Fine blunderers in ethics we are, so generally conveying to children the basic impression that pleasantness must be wrong, and right doing unpleasant! — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

He says no one can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

They were inconveniently reasonable, these women. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Audiences are always better pleased with a smart retort, some joke or epigram, than with any amount of reasoning. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Here she comes, running, out of prison and off the pedestal: chains off, crown off, halo off, just a live woman. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The first duty of a human being is to assume the right relationship to society
more briefly, to find your real job, and do it. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Eternity is not something that begins after you are dead. It is going on all the time. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The women who do the most work get the least money, and the women who have the most money do the least work. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Love grows by service. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The world is quite right. It does not have to be consistent. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Only as we live, think, feel, and work outside the home, do we become humanly developed, civilized, socialized. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Not woman, but the condition of woman, has always been a doorway of evil. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

But reason has no power against feeling, and feeling older than history is no light matter. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Woman should stand beside man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Exciting literature after supper is not the best digestive. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

There should be an end to the bitterness of feeling which has arisen between the sexes in this century. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

When we use our past merely as a guide-book, and concentrate our noble emotions on the present and future, we shall improve more rapidly. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

One religion after another has accepted and perpetuated man's original mistake in making a private servant of the mother of the race. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A man's honor always seems to want to kill a woman to satisfy it. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I have preferred chloroform to cancer — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

There's heaven. There it is. What more do we mean? People, free to come together, and in beauty - for growth. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

What would have been the effect upon religion if it had come to us through the minds of women? — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Life is a verb, not a noun. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Those who too patiently serve as props sometimes underrate the possibilities of the vine. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A house does not need a wife any more than it needs a husband. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The softest, freest, most pliable and changeful living substance is the brain-the hardest and most iron-bound as well. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

There was a time when Patience ceased to be a virtue. It was long ago. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

New York - that unnatural city where every one is an exile, none more so than the American — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In New York City, everyone is an exile, none more so than the Americans. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Until mothers earn their livings, women will not — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I was madly in love with not so much what was there as with what I supposed to be there. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A man does not have to stay at home all day, in order to love it; why should a woman? — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Never in all her life had she imagined that this idolized millinery could look, to those who paid for it, like the decorations of an insane monkey. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Specialization and organization are the basis of human progress. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The front pattern DOES move - and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Until we see what we are, we cannot take steps to become what we should be. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

[The Yellow Wallpaper] was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Where young boys plan for what they will achieve and attain, young girls plan for whom they will achieve and attain. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In a sick society, women who have difficulty fitting in are not ill but demonstrating a healthy and positive response. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A normal feminine influence in recasting our religious assumptions will do more than any other one thing to improve the world. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The female of the genus homo is economically dependent on the male. He is her food supply. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

If a woman is really injured by her marriage, she should sue under the employer liability act. She should claim damages
not alimony. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

To speak broadly, the troubles of life as we find them are mainly traceable to the heart or the purse. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The one predominant duty is to find one's work and do it. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I am glad my case is not serious! — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I always liked that Arab saying, 'First tie your camel and then trust in the Lord, — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The difference is great between one's outside "life," the things which happen to one, incidents, pains and pleasures, and one's "living." — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I ran against a Prejudice that quite cut off the view. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

We grovel and "worship" and pray to God to do what we ourselves ought to have done a thousand years ago, and can do now, as soon as we choose. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman